Length of shortest chain to reach a target word

Given a dictionary, and two words ‘start’ and ‘target’ (both of same length). Find length of the smallest chain from ‘start’ to ‘target’ if it exists, such that adjacent words in the chain only differ by one character and each word in the chain is a valid word i.e., it exists in the dictionary. It may be assumed that the ‘target’ word exists in dictionary and length of all dictionary words is same.

Example:

Input:  Dictionary = {POON, PLEE, SAME, POIE, PLEA, PLIE, POIN}
             start = TOON
             target = PLEA
Output: 7
Explanation: TOON - POON - POIN - POIE - PLIE - PLEE - PLEA

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